mrbojang

Best of luck!

...Maple Syrup?

Thanks man.

So basically I'm slowly piecing my system together and had an idea for an amp rack that is somewhat "expandable". It consists of a wooden base, with a wooden box attached to the end of it for the amps, batteries, etc to be placed into. I'm planning on having ventilation and having the rear of it open faced. It would have shelving for the amps.I'm thinking I could secure the wooden base to these strap hooks I have in the rear of my truck (2006 tahoe), have them protude through the bottom then either use a heavy duty strap or bolts through them. I'd rather not drill into the body anymore than I have in order to secure it. One of the reasons I'd like this design is for security purposes, so people can't look through my (tinted) windows and see various amps\equipment. The basic concept is to have the ability to attach a subwoofer box to the base platform, having a secondary base\mount of sorts that the box can sit in and then screw that in or add latches to the side of the box to secure it further. I don't know how vibration\rattle would affect this, but I suppose if it's secured properly it'd be ok? I've never really worked with wood before but I figure I can get home depot to cut the pieces to size and then wood glue + screw it together it'd work out? The back area is pretty much square, no need to worry about tirewell corners, etc. Would MDF suffice for this? Attached is a ghetto mspaint of what I'm thinking. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Nice! Looks good.

Hi, I just received a new sundown sae-1200dv2..Hooked it up, runs fine however the crossover is not working properly. My current setup consists of the stock head unit ('06 tahoe) with a Scosche LOC-80 line out converter with the gains set around 85%. I was running a directed 1200/5 before and the setup worked fine. However now using the sae when I turn the LPF all the way down I still hear vocals coming out of my subs. I was told this is because my old amp used a 24dB slope, and the sundown amp uses 12dB. I have no idea where to go from here. Any suggestions please?

Ok! I set the head unit bass gain to 50%, the channels to 100% rear (those are the outputs to the amp) and played a 100hz test tone. (sine wave) Readings: Xover on center: 10.1 Xover 100%: 22.7 Xover 0%: 3.7 So since the voltage is changing, it's a problem with my input signal? Looks like the crossover is functioning just fine. Based on those voltages, the signal was down -15db @ 100hz when the crossover was set to 50hz, which is -3db more than expected (12db/oct slope) but could be due to inaccuracies in the crossovers (the pot style crossovers on amplifiers are rarely 100% accurate in range from the tests I've seen). So just to clarify, the two problems you are experiencing is weak output from the amplifier and you feel you are getting too much of the higher range of sound out of the subwoofer? Correct. I had the x-over down to 50hz and still could hear vocals. Power output may be subpar, I didn't really bump it for long since i wasn't sure what was being fed through the subs and didn't want to damage them. When I did have it up high it seemed as if my old amp which is putting out roughly 600watts less powered the subs better. The subs are under powered by 200 watts each. I was thinking I could possibly try turning the gain down on the LOC? I don't know how that would affect the crossover and what it does to the input signal.

I'm using the stock head unit with a line out converter, no x-over settings on the head unit. I'm using the rear channels with no speakers connected. I get bass (granted the gain is near 90% on my other amp - a directed 1200/5, old amp). I don't quite understand why the x-over on that amp can handle it but the sae-1200dv2 can't. I'm going to get an aftermarket head unit soon and run the sae-1200dv2 then, and eventually two of them. Have a big shopping list but a head unit is obviously priority..

Is there a fuse on the head unit or wiring harness? Did you check if it's blown?

Ok! I set the head unit bass gain to 50%, the channels to 100% rear (those are the outputs to the amp) and played a 100hz test tone. (sine wave) Readings: Xover on center: 10.1 Xover 100%: 22.7 Xover 0%: 3.7 So since the voltage is changing, it's a problem with my input signal?

Ok, somewhat stupid question - I recrimped my power and ground cable with spade\fork terminals, they're 4gauge. Could I just put them into the amp's power "holes" and screw them in or do I need to cut them again?

I will test out your method shortly. Thanks for the help.

So I made the mistake of going to a local car audio shop and seeing if they'd hook up the amp to another source... 1st they took my truck without fully talking to me and letting me explain what's going on, came back 10 minutes later "uh it works, you need to set the xover! you don't have any mids?" i had my gain set all the way to the rear to test the subs, and they were playing some FM crap that didn't show vocals in the subs for some reason. I explained I tried setting the xover all the way down and still got vocals coming out of the subs. I put in a cd and showed them. They take it for another 5 minutes and say I need a new head unit or external crossover unit (which jacob said) or a new amp, and they said the amp doesn't have LPF or HPF and I need both for the subs. The amp has a x-over (LPF, right?). My old one was only using LPF and it handled the signal fine... I took out the amp and hooked up my old one for now. I think my best bet is just to get a head unit or a high end LOC like a JL cleansweep and a external EQ if I need to. I'd rather do the latter as it's cheaper than getting a new HU, GM harness, steering wheel harness, and a dash kit. I originally was thinking I could take the sub output from my old amp which i was going to use for my mids and use that to feed into the new amp, however I don't think it outputs a equalized signal? If the amp still isn't performing properly I guess it's borked and I'll send it in? This kind of sucks, I was waiting acouple weeks to be able to get the amp and was pretty excited.

Jacob from sundown is having me test the RCA lead voltage and the voltage coming out of the amp speaker terminals. I will try out your method tomorrow. Thanks for the help.

I also had gain up 100% on headunit and it barely moved. Same with setting it high on the amp. Nothing impressive.

The subs are wired in parallel. Two 4dvc subs. They're wired positive to amp on one coil, positive to other coil. Negative to other coil and negative to amp. It was working fine with my old amplifier. So negative to negative to amp and positive to positive to amp.

It is wired into the inputs. I didn't think I was that foolish. I even checked the sub's wiring and they're wired for 1ohm. They're two 4dvc subs. The output is WEAK as hell. I just put in a new battery today also... I think the amp is defective. :\

Wow that would be ridiculous. I'm checking now. I emailed jacob at sundown and he recommended get an external crossover unit. He was extremely helpful. I'll get back to you in a minute and let you know if I actually hooked it up wrong..

Sorry forgot to include that. I had it set to 100hz originally then tried it all the way down to 50hz and still hear vocals coming out of the subs. A friend suggested I turn the gain down on the line output converters, not sure if that would help? Thanks.